Far Eastern Federal University scientists are developing a methodology to calculate the ratio of dust and gas in comas and tails of comets. This will help learn more about the history of the Solar System and its development, as well as understand the processes that took part on different stages of universal evolution.A team of scientists from the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) under the supervision of the astrophysicist Evgenij Zubko, Ph.D., a lead scientist of the School of Natural Sciences at FEFU is trying to solve a fundamental problem of modern astrophysics which is to assess the reflectivity of cosmic dust particles, their ability to scatter sunlight (or, more generally, star light). To do so, the scientists study the optic characteristics of dust particles in the comae and tails of comets.The methodology under development is based on the Umov effect - an inverse correlation between the reflectivity of a body and the degree of linear polarization of light scattered by it. The brighter is an object, the lower polarization it produces. This relation was first formulated by the Russian physicist Nikolay Umov in 1905.According to Evgenij Zubko, previously the Umov effect was studied only for surfaces, such as regolite ...